A. Technical Field
The present invention relates generally to the field of interactive television, and more particularly, to the automatic control of interactivity in synchrony with television broadcast programs.
B. Background of the Invention
Most interactive television systems attempt to augment existing broadcast programs with viewer selectable interactivity. For example, the interactivity may be broadcast on a special interactive channel that viewer can tune a set top box or other device to receive and present the interactivity. This interactivity is typically provided with a user interface that occupies the entire television screen. In this fashion, the viewer chooses either to watch conventional broadcast programs on the regular channels, or to use the interactivity on an interactive channel. In other implementations, the interactivity may be activated on any channel, but still takes up the entire television screen. However, these implementations of interactive television typically do not require the interactivity to be synchronous with some broadcast program that is being broadcast, since the interactivity overrides the entire screen, thus blocking presentation of the broadcast program. Broadcast programs include television shows, commercials, programming guides, and like.
Another version of interactive television is intended to be displayed only a portion of the television screen, and to provide interactivity that accompanies a broadcast program. For example, a broadcast game show may be accompanied by interactivity that allows the viewer to play along and input answers to questions being posed during the show. This interactivity is displayed on only a portion of the television screen, so as to allow the viewer to continue to watch the broadcast program.
For interactivity that accompanies a broadcast program, it is desirable to maintain the interactivity in synchrony with the broadcast program. This means that the interactivity should be available to the viewer whenever the broadcast program that it accompanies is being broadcast, and that any state information that the viewer has created, e.g. an accumulated point total in a game, should be maintained, even if the broadcast program is temporarily suspended and then resumed, for example, during a commercial break.
It further means that the interactivity should not be displayed when the accompanying broadcast program is not being broadcast or is otherwise interrupted. In particular, proper synchrony requires that the interactivity for a television show not be displayed when a commercial is broadcast during the show. This is for two reasons. First, the commercial may have its own interactivity accompanying it, such as a form for the user to request product information about a product advertised during the commercial. Thus, the commercial's interactivity must be displayed, and yet the show's interactivity must be re-displayed when the commercial (or series of commercials) is over and the television show is resumed. Redisplay of the show's interactivity should be prompt and as noted, should preserve the state information that was available when the commercial began. For example, if the viewer was accumulating points in an interactive game, then the accumulated points should be available when the show's interactivity is resumed.
Second, even if the commercial(s) does not have its own interactivity, it is inappropriate to display the interactivity of the show during the commercial. This is because the interactivity will override a portion of the television screen, thereby covering up part of the commercial, which is unacceptable to the advertiser that paid for the commercial to be broadcast. Also, the interactivity for the show is not associated with the commercial, and its appearance may confuse the viewer.
Accordingly, it is desirable to provide an interactive television system, method, and software products that correctly synchronize the interactivity of various broadcast programs, and accommodate the interruption of broadcast programs by other broadcast programs.
Apart from interactive television systems, conventional television broadcast systems provide various degrees of automated and manual control over how the broadcast programs are selected and output for broadcast transmission. A conventional broadcast system typically includes a broadcast scheduling system, various broadcast sources, a data insertion unit, and a transmitter. The broadcast sources provide the video, audio, or other content that is broadcast via the transmitter. These broadcast sources may be various types of video and audio tape decks, video tape libraries, digital audio/video sources, live video sources, server computers, and the like.
The scheduling system generally controls broadcast sources in a broadcast system with sequences of native control signals. These control signals instruct various ones of the broadcast sources to start, stop, load or otherwise manage their broadcast programs. The sequence of control signals is determined mainly by a playlist that identifies which broadcast source to activate or deactivate at which times, and the channel assignments to which an active broadcast source is to be routed. In a manual control system, the control signals are generated in response to manual operations of human operators to selectively activate or deactivate any of the broadcast sources, and assign the output to the appropriate channel.
The broadcast data from the broadcast source is passed to the transmitter. The transmitter transmits the broadcast signal on a selected channel to any number of broadcast receivers. A broadcast receiver, such as a set top box or compatible television, tuned to the selected channel receives the broadcast signal and displays a broadcast program.
Conventional scheduling systems and manual controls generally provide their output control signals only to the broadcast sources or similar devices. This is because these control signals are in a format specific to the broadcast sources, and not designed to control other types of broadcast equipment. For example, scheduling systems that control video sources use control signals that are meaningful to the video source devices. Accordingly, it is desirable to provide a system and method that uses existing control signals from scheduling systems to further facilitate the automated control of synchronous interactivity with broadcast programs. This is desirable to avoid requiring modification of the scheduling system to operate with new automation enabled equipment.
Some broadcasts insert into the broadcast signal codes that identify the broadcast program or its type, for example, as a television show or as a commercial. One commonly used sets of codes are the Industry Standard Coding Identification system (“ISCI codes”) of the American Association of Advertising Agencies Inc. ISCI codes are normally used to indicate sponsorship or affiliation of a commercial broadcast. However, these codes are not currently used to control the execution of interactivity that may be associated with a television show, commercial, or other broadcast program. Accordingly, it is desirable to provide a system and method that uses these and similar embedded codes in the broadcast signal to control the synchronization of the interactivity of various broadcast programs.
One system of interactive television cooperates with the conventional broadcast system, such as described above, to provide useful interactivity. Such a system includes a broadcast server that stores a database of interactive applications. The interactive applications are selectively associated with various broadcast programs, in order to accompany such programs as they are being broadcast. The broadcast server typically receives its own playlist for a given broadcast period, and uses scheduling information therein to identify particular broadcast programs being currently broadcast. The broadcast server retrieves the interactive application(s) associated with the currently broadcast program(s), and provides these interactive applications to a data insertion unit. The data insertion unit combines the data from the interactive applications with the broadcast data from the broadcast sources to create the broadcast signal, in which the broadcast program is now accompanied by its interactive application. The combined broadcast signal is transmitted by the transmitter on a selected channel. Any of the broadcast receivers tuned to the channel receive the broadcast signal containing both the broadcast program and the accompanying interactive application. The broadcast receiver displays the broadcast program, and decodes and executes the interactive application, displaying it as appropriate on the television screen. The broadcaster server is further capable of sending commands to the broadcast receiver to selectively start, stop, suspend, or resume the execution of some interactive application in accordance with predefined instructions in the playlist.
However, the broadcaster server has previously not been integrated with existing scheduling systems to automate the control of interactive applications based on control signals from the scheduling system. One of difficulties in this regard is the lack of uniformity, and the variety, of control signals that various types of scheduling systems use to control their broadcast sources, which as noted above, are designed to interface with broadcast sources. Nor has this system previously been responsive to ISCI codes or the like to control interactivity. Accordingly it is desirable to provide synchronous interactive applications through an effective interface between the scheduling systems and the broadcast server.
Another problem with existing scheduling systems and broadcast servers is a lack of flexibility in handling partial changes in the contents of interactive applications. In some instances, it is desirable to make only selected changes to the content of an application, instead of replacing the entire application itself. For example, a stock ticker application needs ongoing feeds of updates stock quote records; as another example, a nightly news interactive application may need updates to just those portions related to current news headlines, or an interactive application for a variety show may need updates to just those portions describing the current schedule of guests. Existing systems have been limited thus far to making these changes in the interactive application at its broadcast source, by integrating the changed information with the interactive content prior to generating the broadcast signal. However, this approach does not allow a local broadcast system, such as a cable headend, to insert locally relevant information or updates at its downstream location. Further, in systems where a local broadcast server can replace the interactive application identified in a received broadcast signal with a customized version of the interactive application (e.g., a version with higher quality graphics), then is also desirable to forward updates from the broadcast signal to the customized application for integration of the updates with the application.